'We've not come here to chit-chat about art,' growled Stringer.
'Of course not,' said Chung. 'Look, I'd really love to talk, I mean it. I'll be here tomorrow lunch-time, why not come then? I'm sure there's nothing separating us that a frank and free exchange of views won't clear.'
As she spoke Chung was drawing the protesters with her towards the stairway. They passed quite close to Swain, who raised his glass with what might have been an ironic smile to Stringer as he passed. Then the little group vanished down the stairs and behind them the silence was swept away by a wave of excited speculation.
'Isn't she marvellous?' said Pascoe, and when Mrs Horncastle didn't at once reply, he added with a votary's vigour, 'Don't you agree?'
'I'm sorry. Of course I agree. I was just detecting in myself a disturbing strain of envy! Yes, of course she's marvellous, and how marvellous it must feel to be so complete, so at one with yourself.'
Chung returned, cutting off congratulation by resuming her speech, though this time she kept her feet on the ground. She said pretty thank-you's to a lot more people and by the time she had finished, the interruption was almost forgotten.
Half an hour later the party was breaking up. Swain had left immediately Chung had finished. Pascoe, who had been keeping a professional eye on him, had noticed that when not actively engaged in talking or, more often, listening, he looked haggard and weary. How else should he look in the circumstances, no matter which set of circumstances applied?
Ellie came up to him and said, 'Message from the Almighty. He won't be needing his chariot of fire again tonight. I think he's got himself a date with a bottle of Highland Park.'
'Well, well. First round to Chung. Can she pull it off?'
Ellie shuddered and said, 'I don't think she'd go that far.'
'I don't know. She certainly let the bloat Unstone paddle her palm and chew his way up her ulna.'
'Peter!'
'There goes your dirty mind again. I still reckon she’s boxing outside her weight. She'll find him a lot harder to sort out than a bunch of Prod militants.'
Ellie smiled, then said, 'She's got me helping too, you know.'
'What as? Double agent?'
The gibe came out sharper than he intended but she ignored it and said, 'No. Sort of PR, liaising with the Press, that sort of thing.'
'That's great,' said Pascoe with compensatory enthusiasm. 'She's got herself a bargain.'
'I'll say. She's not paying anything.'
'At twenty thou per annum, she'd still have a bargain,' said Pascoe firmly and Ellie smiled her pleasure.
'Let's go home,' she said.
'Good thinking. But not empty-handed. This is the way to the props room, isn't it? Well, I've delivered Dalziel and I'm not leaving here without my reward. I don't mind Hedda Gabler blowing her brains out over my coffee table but I draw the line at Virginia bloody Woolf!'
'I think you'll find she drowned herself,' laughed Ellie.
'Then I thank God we don't have a goldfish pond. But let's grab the table anyway before Chung gets ideas about a rustic bridge!'
They went out together arm in arm. Dalziel and Chung watched them go.
'Nice people,' said Chung.
'I'll drink to that,' said Dalziel.
'Will they make it, do you think?'
'It'll take a miracle,' said Dalziel.
'Why do you say that?' she asked almost angrily.
'Because young Peter there can make it all the way to the top. But she won't want him there because her let- out at the moment is she can still blame all the police fuck-ups on the scum-bags running things. So if he gets there, she won't stay. And if he doesn't get there, he'll know who to blame.'
'That's pretty damn cynical,' she protested.
'Realistic. And I did say it'd take a miracle. What's a nice lass like you doing with these Mysteries if you don't believe in the God of miracles?'
'Now it's funny you should say that, Andy,' said Eileen Chung.
CHAPTER TWO
On the Friday after Chung's party, Pascoe went to the police lab to collect a report on Dalziel's letters. The arrival of a third as forecast by the fat man had spurred him to action. The originals had come here and copies had gone to Dr Pottle at the Central Hospital Psychiatric Unit.
The Head of the Forensic Examination Unit was called Gentry. A small parchment-faced man who looked as if he might have recently been excavated from the Valley of the Kings, he was nicknamed with constabulary subtlety Dr Death. But he ran a tight tomb, and though the report was short, Pascoe did not doubt that it was comprehensive.
The letters had been typed on a Tippa portable, made in Holland by the Adler company. There was an alignment problem with the capital P. The typist was competent and probably trained, certainly not merely two-
